JUDGE JULIA: You should both know that there is no way I will dismiss this case. I am not sure if a “crime” has been committed, but I am sure that the issue that is before this court is a legitimate one. Millions of people come to Walt Disney World each year and I have no doubt that a good percentage of them either benefit from or suffer because of the Fred Farkles of the world, of Walt Disney World. So yes, this case will go forward.

(She pounds her gavel). Miss Francis, call your first witness.

PHILOMENA FRANCIS: Your honor the plaintiff calls Ms. Fanny Farkle.

Fanny Farkle, Mrs. Fred Farkle, rises from the plaintiff’s desk, casts a sidewise glance at her husband and walks to the witness stand where she is duly sworn in.

PHILOMENA FRANCIS: Mrs. Farkle,,

Fanny interrupts

FANNY: That’s Dr. Farkle.

PHILOMENA: Yes I knew that and was about to ask you what your occupation was besides housewife.

FANNY: One thing I am not is a housewife, not that there’s anything wrong with being one if that is what you choose to be. Yes I am a wife, Fred’s wife and he is MY husband, for now anyway. I have a Ph.D. in modern European history with a specialty in World War II.

PHILOMENA: World War II? As an expert in World War II would you say there are any metaphors that apply to this case?

Defense lawyer rises.

PHILPOT: Your honor, objection. This is a serious civil suit, not a literature lesson. Metaphors certainly need not be used in these proceedings!

JUDGE JULIA: I will overrule that objection counsel. Metaphors are meant to help us make sense of the world. If Mrs. Farkle, excuse me Dr. Farkle can offer an apt metaphor we can use it as a baseline for conversation. It will be up to your skills Mr. Philpot, to refute these. Please proceed Ms. Francis.

PHILOMENA: Dr. Farkle, World War II?

FANNY: Well several could apply. But I can give you two. One would be D Day.

PHILOMENA: And the other?

FANNY: General George Patton.

PHILOMENA: Please explain!

FANNY: Even the most casual viewer of the History Channel or high school American History student is familiar with the events leading up to the D Day invasion of France. The detail invested in landing our forces on the most heavily armed and defended beach front in the war was minute and painstaking. General Eisenhower and his planners had every issue accounted for; weather, speed of landing craft; the English Channel tides; positions of enemy men and artillery. Any combination of missteps would have spelled doom for the invasion forces and our defeat there might have changed the course of all history.

My husband Fred treats every vacation to Walt Disney World like a D Day invasion: We are up at 0700, Francine may use the lavatory from 0701 to 0707, Fabio may use the lavatory from 0708 to 0711, since after all my husband reasons, a teenage girl MIGHT need the bathroom a minute more than a younger son.

We of course have prepaid our meals and of course each meal, each snack, each break has been inputted into the mother of all EXCEL spreadsheets so that no time at all is ever wasted! Oh I could go on and on …

PHILOMENA: Perhaps later Dr. Farkle, and General Patton?

FANNY: Again, I am hoping that Your Honor has read about or at least seen “Patton” with George Scott. Assuming you have, Patton is this bigger than life, straight as an arrow zealot whose singleminded commitment to achieve his military targets is never compromised no matter the human toll.

Well my husband when he is a “civilian”, that is not planning, actually in, or debriefing from our most recent trip to Disney World is a very nice man. He is a loving husband, a devoted and supportive father, and a popular friend and co-worker.

But when he is on his mission it’s as if as Patton has occupied HIM! The only thing he doesn’t have is a swagger stick or a cattle prod to move us all this way and that. He becomes all – consumed with wringing every last drop of what is supposed to be a wonderful magical experience and changing it into a military campaign.

PHILOMENA: And this behavior Dr. Farkle, I take it has soured you and your children not only on your husband but also on Walt Disney World.

FANNY ( Smiles, then frowns, hesitates): Oh it has only soured us on Walt Disney World in the sense of what it has spawned: This man, my husband needs to exorcized of the demons he has created for himself and what it has done to our family vacation time together.

PHILOMENA: Your Honor I’d like the opportunity to recall the witness at a later time.

JUDGE JULIA: Very well I will rule on that when and if you ask. Mr. Philpot would you like to cross examine?